Talk:List of Scientologist celebrities

Proposal: No inline ELs
I propose that all current inline ELs be converted to proper. (1) it makes easier to spot the links that were added in a hurry and which should now be replaced with solid references. There are still a few links to questionable sources like NNDB and others. (2) References definitely fall under WP:RS, but the guidelines and policies applying to inline ELs being used as references are less clear. This should apply to List of Scientologists as well. AndroidCat 19:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested merge
I believe the content of this article should be taken over to List of Scientologists, because 1. that article, despite its name, is primarily a list of former Scientologists because everyone else is on this list, and 2. because many of the people on List of Scientologist celebrities aren't celebrities, by any stretch of the imagination. I will most likely perform this merge next week unless there's an outpouring of dissent. wikipediatrix 22:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Catholics in Celebrity List
Why are only former Catholics identified on this list? It's unnecessary since no other religion or denomination is mentioned. I'm getting rid of the Catholic mention, it is an unnecessary label in this article. VicAnthony 19:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? None of the text you removed said "former Catholic". In fact, you even removed one instance where someone stated they were still Catholic. It is a peculiarity of Scientology that people can still be another religion and a Scientologist at the same time, you see. wikipediatrix 21:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with the original statement. If that's the case, and if the label of "Scientologist" is non-conflicting and separate entirely from the label of any other religion, then why is the fact that a celebrity is formerly or still Catholic even relevant to this list at all? Why is it that this list of people randomly has the tag "Former Catholic" interspersed throughout it? Where is "Formerly Jewish" or "Formerly Methodist" or anything else? It is irrelevant to the list at hand, which is of which celebrities are Scientologists. 69.139.67.90 21:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe you didn't hear me, I'll say it again: the article does not say, nor did it ever say, "former Catholic". I don't know what article you think you're talking about, but you're confused. wikipediatrix 21:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Regarding "former Catholics" or any inclusion of the word Catholic: I obviously didn't "hear you the first time" because we are in a writing medium. No need to be snotty. However, I did read your two rebuttals. You are erroneously stuck on asserting that I misread the article and am against the term "former Catholic," which you state was never entered. Let's be clear and not respond in circles. I'm not against the word "former." My issue is with the peculiar religious tag punctuating some of the names on the list. Why are only Catholics singled out? As stated above, we find no other celebrity described as Methodist, Jewish, Lutheran, whatever. Earlier you wrote that I removed "one instance where someone stated they [meaning the celebrity] were still Catholic." From the edit history, it shows that the list was created originally with ONLY Catholics being tagged as such. This is not what Wikipedia would call a NEUTRAL point of view. If responding, please go beyond your "former Catholic" retort. Why is it so important for you that the article reveal Catholics at all? VicAnthony 18:45, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably because those are the ones that have reliable sources for what their previous affiliation was? If you can find RSs for other celebrities, feel free to add them. AndroidCat 18:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I will remove the "Catholic" tags until more information is provided about the others. Steve Dufour 06:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I left information on Tom Cruise since his wanting to be a priest is much more substancial information. John Travolta's article, for instance, only says that he was raised in a "Catholic home". Steve Dufour 06:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And now you're making judgment calls about how Catholic someone is/was? That sounds like original research. AndroidCat 06:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That is a good reason not to mention a person's former religion at all. BTW many Christians believe that if a person leaves Christianity to join another religion he or she was never a Christian in the first place. Steve Dufour 06:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Undent. According to the Church of Scientology, you don't have to give up your prior religion, so saying "former" religion is OR. (You might want to read all of the previous discussion.) As long as there are cited sources for someone's religion before joining Scientology, what is the problem? AndroidCat 06:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We can not read a person's mind to see if they are really a Catholic or whatever. Steve Dufour 07:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No, but a strawman is always obvious. You're the only person who's mentioned mind-reading. AndroidCat 07:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think there is a WP policy against mind reading. If I run across it I will mention it here. Steve Dufour 14:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Katie Holmes
Do we know that she really believes in Scientology? It seems to me that she might just be going along with it to please Tom. I certainly don't think she is notable for being a Scientologist, just for being married to one. Steve Dufour 06:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Lisa McPherson
She's not a celebrity. She is only famous because of the circumstances of her death. She's notable, yes, but not a celebrity - in fact calling her one smacks of bad taste. Totnesmartin 12:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I will remove it in a couple of days. I'd like to give the anti-Scientologists a chance to explain why she is a celebrity or to remove her name themselves. Steve Dufour 00:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge into List of Scientologists
(split from above section - change of topic)


 * While we're waiting for an anti-Scientologist to appear, I think what needs to be done is to move List of Scientologist celebrities back into List of Scientologists (see above), and then a separate section listing Notable Scientologists added. This would be where people like Lisa McPherson, James Packer, Bryan Zwan, Don Pearson, Sky Dayton, and of course, Reed Slatkin could go. (Personally, I dislike using the word celebrity exclusively for entertainers, but there we are.) AndroidCat 03:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * What difference would an anti-scientologist make - if you mean an anti-scientologist editor, that is? This is, after all, just a list, and one with only two criteria for inclusion. I think the problem here is the definition of celebrity - one whose achievements are celebrated. So as you say, it shouldn't just be entertainers, but scientists, writers and politicians too. Totnesmartin 08:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Although I have been an advocate for fewer Scientology articles, I like the idea of this one. To the average person one of the most interesting things about Scientology is the number of show business people who are members.  They would probably find this article much more interesting than the ones on the Tone Scale and things like that. However, just a list of notable Scientologists might work just as well.  I would support your suggestion to merge this one back into that one. Steve Dufour 11:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think this list should be kept. Correct me if I've got this wrong, but Scientology specifically emphasises the role of "the artist", as opposed to (e.g.) Islam, which emphasises personal modesty. So a list of celebrity Scientologists is notable, whereas a list of celebrity Muslims or Buddhists would simply be happenstance, and probably less notable. Totnesmartin 13:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * But why would this list be less notable back as a section of List of Scientologists, which was gutted to create this article? Why should there be two separate articles? AndroidCat 17:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100%. If a celebrity is a well-know person, everyone mentioned on WP is one. So only one list is needed. If you want to make a sub-category for artists and show business people that could be done. Steve Dufour 18:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I almost had a trial merge done, and my toe bumped the power switch. (That's a first!) The main problem is the table of contents: The main one that lists Officials, Notable Scientologists (formerly Celebrities) and Former Scientologists, but doesn't list all the A..Z, and the mini one which only has the A..Z. I'll work something out that works, and it can be spruced up later. AndroidCat 20:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Dang, I guess that means the merge is back on. :) AndroidCat 15:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Awards
I would like to go through the list and mention Oscars, etc. that the listees have won. I think this would help to establish their celebrity status. Steve Dufour 14:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Another time-wasting hobby-horse? This is a simple list of Scientology celebrities, a brief description of who they are, and references that they are Scientolgists. Celebrities usually have their own Wiki page which is the proper place to list achievements and awards. AndroidCat 15:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said, the awards help establish that they are celebrities. Steve Dufour 23:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So, if they're D-listers with a reference but without any awards, can we kick them off? :) Before the list was cleaned up (and split), there was a problem with steadily growing sections for some actors, and no hard guidelines for ruthlessly pruning them. The additions don't look too bad right now, but each line should be kept short and to notable awards that are easy to check. AndroidCat 03:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I checked out all the listees' articles and there were some that didn't seem to be famous enough to really be called celebrites. I put a couple on notability tags on the articles in the process.  It's fine with me if some minimum level of celebrityhood is established for the list. Steve Dufour 11:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The most suspect are the ones that only have a CoS or CelebrityCentre ref. Those are sources are usually okay for an explicit statement that someone is a Scientologist, but not really that good for real celebrityhood since they frequently seem to overstate people's importance. (Not surprising since part of the CC's purpose is promotion.) An additional non-CoS source for celebrityhoodness might be an idea. AndroidCat 01:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. Steve Dufour 15:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

People who probably belong but are unrefed
I was cleaning off some of the unrefed and found a few which might belong, but have to be removed for lack of references. If anyone wants to try to find a ref, please go ahead. AndroidCat 01:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Grant Cardone, motivational speaker
 * Eddie Deezen, actor
 * Jeffrey Scott, screenwriter
 * William Mapother actor from "Lost", cousin of Tom Cruise (needs Scientologist ref)

What is a celebrity?
At least for the purposes of this article, anyway. The article seems very POV in that it follows the CoS' general practice of referring to anyone involved in show business in any way as being a "celebrity". Now, it seems to me that if Floyd Mutrux is such a celebrity, he'd already have a Wikipedia article about him. There are literally hundreds of thousands of actors and musicians on this planet, and they can't all be celebrities just because they're actors and musicians. Most people have never heard of Pablo Santos, Corin Nemec, Tyler Hynes, etc. wikipediatrix 17:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, see the previous discussions. Certainly a lot of them are basically nobodies or almost-have-beens promoted by the Celebrity Centre, but what objective criteria do you suggest? There should be some sort of notability test, but what? Having or not having a Wiki article isn't very good because that seems to be slanted towards TV series actors. (Look at poor Floyd Mutrux's credits, no Wiki page, and you killed him! :) And then there are the ones who are notable but not really "celebrities", such as Sky Dayton, who should be broken out and put on a separate list. AndroidCat 19:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the problem could be sidestepped by renaming the article "List of notable Scientologists" and then applying Wikipedia's own definition of notability to that list. wikipediatrix 19:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean renaming the Celebrity list in the List of Scientologists article to Notable Scientologists? (So far, everyone thinks this article should be re-merged back in.) I like that. It would mean that all the names ref'ed as Scientologists to most CoS sources would need additional refs for notability. Strip them all out to the Talk page and let everyone pitch in to find refs and re-add them? (That worked well the last time.) AndroidCat 20:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm only referring to a solution for if we must have this article, of course. I would prefer that it be merged back to List of Scientologists. If everyone's in agreement on that already, then let's merge it back. wikipediatrix 02:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good idea.S. M. Sullivan 20:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)